House of Eratosthenes

My thanks to Democratic Underground for making this frustrated lady’s thoughts visible by putting them in a prominent place where we can find them, and for providing me with such entertainment. My response to this misguided soul comes in this post, following the text of her letter:

I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middle of the country — the people who voted for George W. Bush. I am writing this letter because I don’t think we know each other.

So I’ll make an introduction. I am a New Yorker who voted for John Kerry. I used to live in California, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. I used to live in Washington, DC, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. Kerry won in all three of those regions.

Maybe you want to know more about me. Or maybe not; maybe you think you know me already. You think I am some anti-American anarchist because I dislike George W. Bush. You think that I am immoral and anti-family, because I support women’s reproductive freedom and gay rights. You think that I am dangerous, and even evil, because I do not abide by your religious beliefs.

Maybe you are content to think that, to write me off as a “liberal” – – the dreaded ‘L’ word – – and rejoice that your candidate has triumphed over evil, immoral, anti-American, anti-family people like me. But maybe you are still curious. So here goes: this is who I am.

I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn’t see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can’t sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up?

I am a worker. I work across the street from the Citigroup Center, which the government told us is a “target” of terrorism. Later, we found out they were relaying very old information, but it was already too late. They had given me bad dreams again. The subway stop near my office was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers. Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to make sure I don’t have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office?

I am a neighbor. I have a neighbor who is a 9/11 widow. She has two children. My husband does odd jobs for her now, like building bookshelves. Things her husband should do. He uses her husband’s tools, and the two little girls tell him, “Those are our daddy’s tools.” How many 9/11 widows and orphans do you know? How often do you fill in for their dead loved ones?

I am a taxpayer. I worked my butt off to get where I did, and so did my parents. My parents saved and borrowed and sent me to college. I worked my way through graduate school. I won a full tuition scholarship to law school. All for the privilege of working 2,600 hours last year. That works out to a 50 hour week, every week, without any vacation days at all. I get to work by 9 am and rarely leave before 9 p.m. I eat dinner at my office much more often than I eat dinner at home. My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more – – once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security. In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry – – New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts – – they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for?

I am a liberal. The funny part is, liberals have this reputation for living in Never-Neverland, being idealists, not being sensible. But let me tell you how I see the world: I see America as one nation in a world of nations. Therefore, I think we should try to get along with other nations. I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies. I see that people have awful diseases.

Therefore, I think we should enable scientists to try to cure them. I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld. I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me. It seems so pragmatic to me. How do you see the world? Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay? Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson’s disease? Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees? Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness?

I am an American. I have an American flag flying outside my home. I love my home more than anything. I love that I grew up right outside New York City. I first went to the Statue of Liberty with my 5th grade class, and my mom and dad took me to the Empire State Building when I was 8. I love taking the subway to Yankee Stadium. I loved living in Washington DC and going on dates to the Lincoln Memorial. It is because I love this country so much that I argue with my political opponents as much I do.

I am not safe. I never feel safe. My in-laws live in a small town in Ohio, and that town has received more federal funding, per capita, for terrorism preparedness than New York City has. I take subways and buses every day. I work in a skyscraper across the street from a “target.” I have emergency supplies and a spare pair of sneakers in my desk, in case something happens while I’m at work. Do you? How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? Do you dread beautiful, blue-skied September days? I don’t know a single New Yorker who doesn’t spend the month of September on tip-toes, superstitiously praying for rain so we don’t have to relive that beautiful, blue-skied day.

I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don’t understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world. You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists. You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq. You voted for a man who doesn’t want to let people love who they want to love; doesn’t want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn’t want to let women rule their destinies. I don’t understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him? Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to persuade us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.) Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation? Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?

Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career — which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 — will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon. Is your life at stake? Are you terrified?

I don’t think you are. I don’t think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that.

And here is my response:

I am writing in response to your letter to the �people in the red states in the middle of the country � the people who voted for George W. Bush.� I am one of the latter, not one of the former. I cast my vote for Bush out of California. Before I lived in California, I lived in Michigan, and if I lived there now I would vote for Bush. Before I lived in Michigan I lived in Washington State, and if I lived there now I would vote for Bush. Kerry won all three of those regions.

The angry words you have written cause me to worry about you, as well as the many people whose sympathetic feelings are inflamed by your letter. I know there are many people like you, albeit not enough to sway an election. What causes me to worry about people like you most, is the way you think. How you think. Your ability, or what is left of it, to think. How your strengths and weaknesses in that area affect your ability to conduct a happy life. Let me explain.

Six hundred and eighty-one words into your 1,576-word screed, you begin to show some promise by articulating exactly what it is you have seen and how this affects the opinions you hold. This is a healthy sign, although you go nowhere with it. Example: �I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld.� I agree with you in that regard. What has this to do with casting a vote against Bush? What parts of this Constitution are you afraid would not be upheld? Looking up those parts and seeing what they say, what do you think they mean? How do you think they should be interpreted? Based on your introduction, I figure your education and your profession, have something to do with law. It should therefore come naturally to pose an argument substantiating that Bush is some kind of enemy to the constitution, if such an argument can be posed. But you managed to avoid doing this. Why would that be?

You say, �I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me.� New Yorker, perhaps it will help express my sentiments to you, and resolve some of the questions you have, if this time I tell you what people like me have been seeing. I saw that in the late winter of 2003 we argued, not about whether Iraq posed an imminent threat, but whether it was proper to take action against Iraq before it posed an imminent threat. You may have lost track of what exactly the hubbub was about; red voters, living in red states or in blue ones, did not. We know danger when we see it.

Did you know it is beyond any dispute that Iraq was armed, and it possessed munitions it was not allowed to have under international law?

Did you know it is beyond dispute that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before, and was trying to get them again?

You say, �I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies.�

You should read that Constitution that you say you see. Gay people are already guaranteed equal protection under the law. And our government is not authorized to �give� people control over their bodies. What has this to do with a vote for the President of the United States? You do not say.

In fact, much of your letter deals with bad feelings you have, resentments, grudges, and blame � while going very light on any connection between these issues and who is to be our President. Eleven hundred and seventy-nine words into your lengthy dissertation, you abandon the promising thread about things you see and what you think, and lapse into the more comfortable region of what you feel. Lamenting the lack of safety that you feel, you say you �feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies.� New Yorker, what is the difference between a provoked enemy and an unprovoked one?

You personally witnessed the destruction caused by men who were willing to die for their cause, for their own feelings of anger, anger not unlike your own. They were provoked? Tell me please, you who are so finely tuned to your feelings of impending doom, that you keep running shoes on your desk: Let us say these deranged men are still present but no longer provoked. Let us say we mollify them instead. Appease them. Find out what it is they want, and give it to them. How safe does that make you feel?

You ask, �Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation?� I elected him because that is precisely what I think. Again, let�s spend a couple seconds thinking about what I have seen in my lifetime. I have seen our messiest wars, the wars that dragged on the longest, the wars that resulted in the most inconclusive, fragile and tenuous times of superficial �peace� � fought with the fingerprints of �international cooperation� all over them. Did you know the United Nations issued seventeen resolutions against Iraq, which Saddam Hussein then ignored, with little to no consequence? Did you know that the United Nations refused to enforce their own resolutions until George Bush castigated them for becoming irrelevant, and even then stood fast against doing anything about Iraq?

Did you know the United Nations member nations were bribed against enforcing these resolutions? Bribed with dirty �Oil For Food� money that was supposed to help poor Iraqis?

What do you suppose Saddam Hussein was doing that justified parting with billions of dollars in cash to bribe officials to look the other way? He probably didn�t spend billions of dollars just for fun. Does that make you feel safe yet?

You�re right; you don�t know us. I know you can form an opinion. But by failing to demonstrate any connection between the facts you have collected, and the opinions you have reached, you left yourself unable to assign any value, any weight, to those opinions. Faced with a choice where you find two opinions conflict, and you must maintain fidelity to one opinion while becoming an apostate of another, you�d be absolutely lost. Yet such a choice is something real adults must face all the time. This is the essence of making tough decisions, when you know valuable things are depending on the outcome of the decisions you make. By maintaining only a �collection� of cherished opinions, nursing ignorance regarding how much foundation each opinion enjoys, you have alienated yourself from this mindset and therefore the ability to think like an adult.

This I know, from reading what you have written.

Yet when you said �You think that I am immoral and anti-family� � and �You think I am some anti-American anarchist� � you had not yet read anything I wrote. You spun these beliefs about my thoughts out of whole cloth. Again, you formed an opinion without foundation. The opinions I have formed about you, I have formed as a result of the foundations that support those opinions.

That is why you don�t know us.

Even like-minded liberals chafe at the blistering close of your letter, in which you lay blame at the feet of voters such as myself for some future attack. May I assume then that logically, you are extending to us the credit that thus far you have not been attacked?

I hope your fears continue to pass into the ether of history, never having been realized. I hope you and everyone you love, enjoys a long, full, happy life. And to make sure that happens, since I know I haven�t a scintilla of hope of ever changing your mind, about anything, I hope every election you see disappoints you. I would so much rather see you inflicted with post-election depression, than killed.

And THAT is why I voted to re-elect George W. Bush.

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Letter From A New YorkerWednesday, November 24th, 2004

Letter From A New Yorker
Wednesday, November 24th, 2004